New York - The Novel

afterward?” his wife said.
    “They might.” Sean inspected the shutters, checked the door again, and turned to Hudson. “You’re going down to the cellar. You’ll stay there till I tell you it’s safe to come up.”
    “What’s the draft got to do with Hudson?” his wife asked, after the black man had gone down, rather unwillingly, to the cellar.
    But Sean O’Donnell didn’t answer.

    At nine o’clock, Frank Master knew he really ought to be going. He gazed across at Lily de Chantal. She was sitting up in bed, in a lacy gown, and she looked delicious. But before he left, there was a question or two that he needed to ask.
    “Should you like to go up to Saratoga, one day?” he inquired.
    He loved Saratoga, and journeys to the fashionable resort could be accomplished in considerable style. For those who could afford it, there was a sumptuous steamer, like a little floating hotel, that plied its way up the Hudson all the way past Albany. Then carriages took you to the greatsummer houses and hotels of the spa. That journey upriver still felt as much of an adventure to him now as it had when he was a boy.
    And there was no doubt in his mind, after that weekend, that he wanted to share the journey with her. They’d have to be circumspect, of course. He couldn’t very well carry out a public affair with her, even up in Saratoga, with New York society there. But these things could be managed discreetly. He knew other men who did so.
    The question was, did Lily de Chantal wish to go?
    “You love the Hudson River, don’t you?” she said. “When’s the first time you went up it?”
    “When I was a boy. My father took us all, to escape the yellow fever when it was in the city. Then, a bit later, he took me all the way across to Niagara Falls, for the opening of the Erie Canal.”
    “I can imagine you as a little boy. What was your father like? Was he a good man?”
    “He was.” Frank smiled. “He tried to show me the majesty of Niagara Falls. He wanted to share it with me. Wanted to open my heart.”
    “Did he succeed?”
    “Not then—I only saw the volume of falling water—but I remembered.”
    “You feel it now?”
    “Yes, I believe I do.”
    She nodded thoughtfully. “I will come with you to Saratoga, Mr. Master. But wait a little while. Then, if your heart tells you to, ask me again.”
    “As you wish.”
    “It’s what I wish.”
    Suddenly Frank laughed. “I just remembered. I was angry with him that day. At Niagara.”
    “Why?”
    “Oh, to do with a little Indian girl. It’s not important. The Falls were the main thing.”
    “I may stay here a few hours before I go home,” she said. “I feel rather lazy. Do you mind?”
    “Keep the room as long as you like.”
    “Thank you.”
    It was in the hotel lobby that he heard about the marches.
    “First the West Side, then the East,” a fellow guest told him. “They’regoing uptown to protest against the draft. Quite a few of the factories along the East River have closed in sympathy.”
    “What sort of crowd?”
    “Union men. Irish, of course, but a lot of the German workers too. They mean to surround the Draft Office, I believe.”
    “Violent?”
    “Not that I’ve heard.”
    “Hmm.” Master considered whether to go home. The union men wouldn’t be interested in Gramercy Park, though, and the Draft Office was more than twenty blocks further north. He decided to go to his counting house first.
    The air felt thick and heavy when he stepped into the street. It was going to be one of those hot and humid July days. He started to walk down Broadway—it was only a mile to City Hall. Things seemed quiet enough. He continued down to Trinity Church and turned across Wall Street to the East River. A few minutes more and he was at his counting house. His clerk was there, working quietly as usual.
    After ten minutes, a young merchant looked in.
    “Looks like things are getting rough up the East Side,” he reported. “They’ve been pulling down the telegraph lines. Broke into one store and took a load of broad axes. I wouldn’t care to be running the draft lottery today.”
    Telling his clerk he’d be back later, but to lock up if there was any sign of danger, Master started to walk along the South Street waterfront. At Fulton Street, he found a cab and told the driver to head up the Bowery and across into Gramercy Park. Everything there seemed to be quiet. “Go up Third Avenue,” he said to the driver. He had no desire to